This month we are pleased to announce the launch of
the new InternationalStudent.com Concierge service - with the sole
purpose of matching colleges, universities and ESL programs in the
USA with qualified students like yourself. Find out more on our Concierge
page and let schools contact you!

Also, the NAFSA Annual Conference is just around the
corner and we will be there so let us know if you would like to
meet.

Travellerspoint has a great system for searching and
booking hostels and other budget accommodations. Their system lets
you search more properties at the same time, meaning more choice and
better prices without wasting time doing the same search on multiple
sites. Travellerspoint also combines the ratings and reviews from
their partners' customers, in addition to their own 'Trusted
Reviews', meaning you can be sure that a property's rating is as
accurate as possible. And because your booking is processed on
Travellerspoint, all your booking references are kept in one place,
making it quick and easy to locate a booking confirmation if you
misplace your copy.

One particularly cool thing about the
Travellerspoint system is their social
bookings feature, which lets you connect with other
travellers who have booked the same hostel as you; now that's a
great way to get to know folks before you travel!

With the NAFSA Annual Conference just around the
corner, International Student will be there in force with two booths
for International Student Insurance and International Student Loan.
Although the event is mainly aimed towards higher education
professionals, we do see some students attend to look around the
various school and country booths.

If you are a higher education professional who is
planning to attend and would like to learn more about International
Student and how we can help you recruit international students or
increase your profile online - please do not hesitate to contact us or drop by our booth (numbers
820 and 821). We would love to talk to you and look forward to
seeing you there!

This month we feature two related stories about the changes to the
student visa procedures and policies for international students in
Australia. First, you can read in this press release on the website
for the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship about the changes
to the student visa systems, which in many cases make it tougher to
get a visa. The Minister, Senator Chris Evans, says: "This
latest round of changes strikes the right balance between making the
visa application process easier for genuine students while imposing
additional checks on those who may seek to abuse the system. The
latest measures include changes to the assessment of students
studying more than one course, increased powers to cancel visas and
streamlining the processing of postgraduate students."

The next article, from The Hindu online, highlights
how thousands of Indian students are struggling to get back their
prepaid tuition fees from Australian educational institutions after
their visas were rejected, following the student visa changes
described in the article above.

This month we have a great, and short question from
one of our members who simply asks:

"I've been curious since I sometimes don't
know what to do when I feel really homesick and cant call home.
What do you guys do???"

Homesickness is a real problem for many students
when you travel and study abroad, and the culture shock you
experience when you first arrive can cause a lot of stress. We have
a
great article on this in our study in the USA
help and advice pages and we would also like to hear from other
students who have experienced this and what you did - Please post a
response:

If you are a traveler, or just interested in finding
the lowest prices on travel-related necessities like hotels,
airfare, rental cars, etc., then check out Kayak.com. Kayak calls
themselves simply a travel search site, however they are actually a
little bit better than that in our eyes. You can do the standard
things like search for airfares across multiple carriers - but where
they are really useful is their fare email alerts (where you get
daily or weekly email alerts to all the latest fares for a
particular route) and buzz where you can do
generic searches from a particular city to a part of the world and
find the best deals! For us, its worth a mention and will hopefully
save you money when you travel!

With the huge success of our iPhone application that
we launched back in January of this year, we are now proud to launch
the equivalent Android version. The new android application provides
you with all the same functionality of the iPhone application such
as instant access to our blog feed, live view of our twitter feed,
the opportunity to share information you see with twitter or
facebook and much more.

Both applications are free, so if you have a smart
mobile phone such as an iPhone or any Android powered phone,
download it today and please leave your rating and comments!

We hope you enjoyed this month's newsletter, and
best of luck to you as you pursue or help others pursue an
international education! As always please contact us with any questions or
comments you have about the newsletter - we love to hear from you!